Mike Sandrock: Boulder plays big role in Japanese runners' success

In the spring of 1992, a young Japanese runner named Yuko Arimori landed in Boulder for a stint of high-altitude training before the Barcelona Olympic Games.

Arimori went on to take the silver medal, ahead of Boulder's Lorraine Moller, with Sachiko Yamashita of Japan coming in fourth.

Arimori, who went on to earn the bronze medal four years later at the Atlanta Olympics, opened the door for a steady stream of Japanese runners that have been coming to Boulder ever since. She was the first to train here, and each year, up to two dozen elite Japanese teams come for one, and even two, training stints.

The most recent are the Japanese Olympians getting ready for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. They include Kayoko Fukushi, Tomomi Tanaka, Misaki Onishi, Hanami Sekine, Ayuko Suzuki, Anjyu Takamizawa, Yuka Takashima and Miyuki Uehara. Yamashita was back as well, now as a top national coach.

"We are thrilled you are here," Jones, herself a runner, told the Olympians and their coaches at the informal Rio send-off, poolside at the Residence Inn. "May the blessings of Boulder be with you. May your hard training pay off, and may you have wings on your feet!"

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The man orchestrating Friday's send-off, as well as the training camps, was Brendan Reilly, longtime local resident and head of Boulder Wave. And while the runners come to Boulder for altitude, trails and ambience, another reason is Reilly himself. He is a top-notch organizer who helped and occasionally trained with 2000 Olympic marathon gold medalist Naoko Takahashi — the first woman to run under 2 hours, 20 minutes for the marathon — as well as 2004 Olympic gold medalist Mizuki Noguchi in setting up their Boulder stays.

Both Takahashi and Noguchi now own homes in Longmont. It is their success, part of a lineage stretching back to Yamashita's 1991 World Championship silver medal and then Arimori's Olympic medals, that draws elite Japanese to Boulder, which is well-publicized in Japan. (Three different Japanese TV crews were in town the past month filming the 2016 Olympians.)

"Brendan is fluent in Japanese and has a consummate love of runners," said Moller, who competed in four Olympic Games and won Japan's prestigious Osaka marathon three times. "Add his astute knowledge of the big world of international athletics with his strong ethical philosophy, and you have a personality who is a great asset to both the sport and the community of Boulder."

When I asked Reilly for a list of names of athletes, elite and non-elite, he has set up in Boulder, he sent back an email explaining that it would not be possible — the number is near 3,000, from roughly 15 countries, including all but one Japanese marathon Olympic or World Championship medalist since 1996.

That brings a lot of cash to the local economy, said Boulder Twin Lakes Inn owner Prasad, a two-time 10,000 meter and marathon Olympian for Fiji who got his business start by massaging the Japanese athletes while still in massage school. Prasad is part of the Boulder Hotel and Motel Association, and said Boulder Wave's training camps "boost the economy in many ways, from rental cars, taxis, airport shuttles, housing at apartments, hotels, groceries, restaurants, shopping malls, downtown Boulder, the Twenty Ninth Street mall, coffee shops, massages and physical therapy.

"These athletes are a bonus to the Boulder economy and the Boulder branding."

Best of all, added Prasad, looking over the runners admiring their new "dream catchers," given as good-luck gifts, "they are like family. We can all share in the victories and feel part of their team."

Notes: Ultra star Scott Jurek is giving a free talk at 6 p.m. Monday at the Boulder Running Company, 2775 Pearl St. He will be helping launch a new line of Brooks shoes, each pair with a piece of a shoe he wore on his record-breaking 2015 Appalachian Trail run ... Thursday evening is a summer highlight, the 39th annual Eldorado Springs Cure 4-miler, one of the oldest races in the state. Race entry includes use of the artesian swimming pool ... and Friday, U.S. Olympians Emma Coburn and Jenny Simpson will be greeting fans at the Flatirons Running, 629 S. Broadway.

Kayoko Fukushi, left, Japan's Olympic marathon runner, has fun with Brendan Reilly before a press briefing in Boulder on Friday. Reilly has been helping bring Japanese runners to Boulder for several years, including the Japanese distance runners on their Olympic team. See more photos and a video at dailycamera.com. (Cliff Grassmick / Staff Photographer)

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